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Henrico Schools officials Thursday proposed the construction of two new elementary schools – one in the Fairfield District and one in the Far West End – and the expansion of a middle school as part of a revised list of priorities for the school system's capital improvement program.
The Fairfield elementary and middle school expansion projects are designed to alleviate crowding at several schools and accommodate anticipated needs from new development; pending funding, both projects are targeted for completion in time for the 2022-23 school year. School officials haven't projected an opening date for the Far West End school, which is viewed as a slightly longer-term project.
All three projects would be new additions to the CIP, a document that the School Board uses to prioritize major construction and renovation needs on a rolling five-year basis; none were identified as anticipated needs during the five-year period outlined in the current CIP.
A team of consultants also has recommended that the school system consider rebuilding five existing facilities in the coming years rather than renovating them: Jackson Davis and Longan elementary schools; Quioccasin Middle; the Virginia Randolph complex; and the Central Gardens facility (which houses the Math and Science Innovation Center).
Redistricting impacts
The plans for a new Fairfield elementary school and a middle school expansion could alter the ongoing countywide school redistricting process slightly and lead to a multi-phase implementation of new school boundaries, officials said. New boundaries (once adopted next year by the School Board) had been anticipated to take effect in time for the 2021-22 school year, but some – or possibly all – now may take place the following year so that families aren't switched from one school zone to another more than once.
Building a new elementary school and expanding a middle school also could reduce the need for significant boundary shifts elsewhere in the county, Henrico Schools spokesman Andy Jenks wrote in a press release Thursday.
The Fairfield elementary school would be designed largely to accommodate students from the 1,035-home, 250-acre River Mill development that is taking shape just west of Virginia Center Commons in northern Henrico's Fairfield District. It also would help address longer-term enrollment issues that might exist otherwise at Greenwood and Longdale elementaries, Jenks said.
Henrico County officials are in the process of acquiring land for the proposed school, Jenks said; the site is believed to be within the footprint of River Mill, which is owned by developer HHHunt.
A draft version of the proposed Fiscal Year 2020-21 to 2024-25 CIP presented to the School Board yesterday included references to the Far West End elementary school (estimated to cost $38 million) and the middle school expansion (estimated to cost $12 million) but did not include the seemingly more urgent Fairfield elementary school. That, Jenks said, was because the Fairfield proposal was based upon enrollment figures that officials didn't have when crafting the document several weeks ago.
Those enrollment statistics show that the school system's attendance projections for the current school year were short (by about 250 students) of the actual number, Assistant Superintendent for Operations Lenny Pritchard told the School Board during its work session Thursday. Among the 11 elementary schools where attendance is 25 or more students higher than anticipated: Dumbarton, Holladay, Glen Allen and Greenwood, all of which are geographically near River Mill.
In recent years, school system planners have faced a new challenge when projecting how many students a neighborhood will produce: multiple families with children living in a single-family home. The situation has shown itself in a growing number of instances, primarily in western and northwestern Henrico.
Expansion of a middle school will allow more seats countywide at the middle school level and help officials evenly distribute students at that level, they said. In his release, Jenks referred to the middle school as one "to be determined." But during the board's work session Thursday, Three Chopt District member Micky Ogburn referenced "the addition at Hungary Creek." No expansion project at Hungary Creek is identified on the current draft version of the capital improvement program and none is shown on this year's adopted version.
"The data we showed yesterday make Hungary Creek a logical option for this expansion, and it’s reasonable for our board members to make that connection due to the amount of focus on enrollment in that area," Jenks wrote in an e-mail to the Citizen Friday. "As a staff, we haven’t made a commitment yet simply because we’re still waiting for enrollment figures to finalize, and to review this information with our redistricting committee as well."
In 2018, Hungary Creek was 10 students over its capacity of 989, Jenks said.
Bond referendum coming?
The School Board updates and adopts its CIP annually, but the Board of Supervisors allocates funding only for the first year. During the current fiscal year, which began July 1, that amount was $190.1 million.
In preparation for its adoption of the new CIP, the board commissioned an analysis of 12 aging facilities to recommend which should be addressed first. A team of consultants ranked Davis E.S., Virginia Randolph, Holladay E.S., Longan E.S. and Highland Springs E.S. in order as the top five schools among those 12 most in need of upgrades; it also suggested that the board considering rebuilding five of the 12 rather than renovating them.
Excluding the Fairfield school, whose anticipated cost has not been outlined, the projects shown in the draft CIP during the next five fiscal years are estimated to cost $667 million. The only funding source that could allow the new proposed facilities to take shape as quickly as school leaders hope seemed obvious to board members Thursday.
"For this to happen, we are going to have to have another bond referendum," Ogburn said.
County voters approved a $419.8-million referendum three years ago. It typically takes 18 to 24 months from the time of initial discussion to the date on which such a referendum actually appears before voters, School Board chairman John Montgomery said – "so it's never too early [to begin discussing it]."
Should the school system be able to complete all the projects listed on the draft version of the CIP by the end of Fiscal Year 2024-25, it would have renovated or rebuilt all schools originally built prior to 1990, Pritchard told the board.
Henrico already is planning to open new versions of J.R. Tucker and Highland Springs high schools, as well as a massive addition to Holladay Elementary (effectively a doubling of the school, in lieu of construction of a new elementary school) in time for the 2021-22 school year.
The Tucker and Highland Springs projects will end up costing Henrico $31 million more than officials originally had planned. When they announced the plans for those new projects in September 2018, officials said that each project would cost $80 million. But the actual construction contract for Highland Springs is for $98.3 million, while the contract for Tucker is $92.7 million.
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As part of the CIP proposal, officials have suggested increasing the funding for school bus replacement by $2 million annually – to a total of $6 million – so that they can replace about 50 buses a year instead of 30. That would allow every bus to be replaced every 12 years, according to Pritchard. The school system maintains a fleet of 623 buses currently, he said, and its maintenance costs have risen as it's worked to keep aging buses on the road. Replacing them sooner would decrease those fees, he said.
Officials also are proposing to increase the annual funding for roofing and mechanical improvements at school facilities by a total of $1 million – from $2.5 million to $3.5 million. It would be the first increase in that funding in about two decades. The money would be used for a combination of roofing and mechanical projects as prioritized by school officials.
